Lowell attempted to master a poetic voice , but his efforts were largely unsuccessful , especially in the lyrical mode . The deficiencies which characterized his work in his first volume , A Year 's Life (1841 , are never entirely absent from his more mature performances : technical infelicities and irregularities , didacticism , obscurity , and excessive literosity . Emerson 's complaint that Lowell in one of his poems had had to pump too hard describes well the forced quality in most of his poetry . Lowell was probably...











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